" Public Virtue cannot exist in a Nation without private, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics. There must be a possitive Passion for the public good, the public Interest, Honour, Power, and Glory, established in the Minds of the People, or there can be no Republican Government, nor any real Liberty. And this public Passion must be Superiour to all private Passions.47 This was about as succinct an example as exists of the influence of the classical model on the thinking of the Revolutionary generation. "

― Thomas E. Ricks , First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country